THE EXPLANATION OF INTERPERSONAL EVENTS - THE IMPORTANCE OF BALANCE AND CAUSALITY

According to Brown and VanKleeck (1989), the perceived causes of inter personal events are mediated by two kinds of factors: First, the inter personal verbs used to describe these events carry implicit informatio n with regard to the question of which one of the potential interactio n partners has caused the event. Second, explanations of interpersonal events are governed by the principle of balance. For example, positiv e events are predominantly explained by positive causes, and negative events by negative causes. In addition, the interaction of the two mec hanisms also has important consequences concerning the explanation of social events: (1) In balanced triads, an event is ascribed to the int eraction partner who is seen as the causally dominant one (according t o the implicit causality of the verb that is used to describe the inte raction). (2) However, this pattern of data is reversed for unbalanced triads: here, the event is ascribed to the interaction partner who is seen as the causally less dominant one, according to the implicit cau sality of the verb. The present study addresses the question of whethe r this attributional shift can be explained in terms of corresponding changes in perceived covariation information. Results indicate that th e perception of consensus and distinctiveness indeed correspond to the causal attributions as they are obtained for different kinds of triad s. Thus, classical attribution variables are regarded as promising can didates in order to explain these attributional shifts for balanced ve rsus unbalanced events.